Of this Brussels district, the world media have mostly shown and narrated the terrorist cells that have stained Paris and Brussels with blood. Yet it is also there that generations of artists of all nationalities have chosen to settle, mainly attracted by the cheap rents. They do not necessarily come for the neighbourhood life: they are cohabiting with a poor population, mostly the product of a decade of immigration and partly plagued by radical Islam.

MOLENBEEK, ARTISTS HAUNTBRUSSELS, BELGIUM | APRIL 2016

Writer: Roxana Azimi

Of this Brussels district, the world media have mostly shown and narrated the terrorist cells that have stained Paris and Brussels with blood. Yet it is also there that generations of artists of all nationalities have chosen to settle, mainly attracted by the cheap rents. They do not necessarily come for the neighbourhood life: they are cohabiting with a poor population, mostly the product of a decade of immigration and partly plagued by radical Islam.